We Are All Mentors In Some Way

If you hold a leadership role in any way, you qualify to be a mentor you are obligated to be a mentor. We all need guidance in some way – in both our personal and professional lives – and someone committed to helping those in their purview has a profound impact on the world.

You might be an older sibling, a parent, a manager, or simply hold tenure in your role. I’ve had many mentors in both my personal and professional life. A mentor provides direction while enabling you to find and make your way. And, in that way, they do the world a solid. I’ve always felt an obligation to demonstrate the immense life-changing value of these relationships back to my mentors. It felt important to show them their efforts were fruitful and that I was a better version of myself due, in large part, to my relationship with them.

Very recently, I lost my professional mentor and feel that I will never be able to show him all the rough edges he helped to round out nor the full depth of my appreciation to him. Being the incredibly perceptive person he was, he likely observed that years ago. Scott Staab was a generous and remarkably patient man. I am indebted to him and feel it’s my obligation to share and perpetuate his legacy – a style of leadership that creates a safe, nurturing culture which nurtures and brings out the very best in people.

I’ve worked at companies that formalize this process through “big brother/big sister” programs similar to fraternities and sororities. And have worked at others what situate mentor/mentee relationships simply by the direct reports of a manager. However constructed, these are usually great models in that you pair a person, in need of information and insight to survive, with a person who can provide that to them. And, if you’re fortunate enough to have a chemistry match, you take a synthesized relationship and you find yourself in a relationship that continues beyond the walls of the workplace and even beyond your time here on earth.